Oh no, what should I do?  I found a cute 3 1/2" vise that seemingly had a hard life. Not only the missing parts, but the legs were bent in as if someone had cranked down on the handle with a cheater bar. I'm guessing the screw box also blew apart, because the current one doesn't quite look like it was original. The current screw and box is in excellent shape, however.

So, I pulled it apart, the first step was to straighten both legs. Got them hot, laid them on the anvil and beat them into submission with a flatter and a small sledge.

I then fabbed up the mounting bracket, keys and spring. All material was A36. Spring was 1x 3/16', bent cold. Saddle was 1x 3/8 drilled, hot punched and hot bent. Body blank was 1x 1" drilled and hot punched, then drawn down, saw split and formed. Keys were 1 x 1/4" chisel cut cold and filed.

Put everything back together, and it all works a treat. I could do a little more tweaking, but it works pretty well at this point. I'll mount it somewhere and some how, use it a whill and take it from there. All in all, a fun satisfying little project.

Steve

Wow, hard life indeed. Great job fixing it up

Nice fix!

You did a good job on your vise, I've really enjoyed rehabbing all the post vises I can get my hands on . Carry on the good work!

Always great when a poor old abused tool, normally bound for a scrap yard, is rehabilitated to great working condition again. Nice job. 

Nice job! How hard does a guy have to turn the handle to bend a vise like that? Oh Okay, right, how long a cheater?

Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks for this post (no pun intended) I need to get busy and make mounting hardware for both of mine. Your detailed post will help a lot. Looking forward to some shop time now that cooler weather is on the way.

One question, why A36? My metallurgy knowledge is very weak.

It'll do the job and it's common and cheap would be my guess. (For a new smith it is also less likely to fail in the forging/heat treating or use than a higher carbon alloy)

Eh? 36? Eh!  Don't look for anything Magic, simple is best!! The material you have is the right stuff!!

Neil

 

The material you have is the right stuff!!

Neil

Good cause I have plenty of that!

Good job on a nice, little vise.

Thanks, all. I figure the damage was done by the notorious 'shop gorilla'. I once worked with one of those guys. Strong as an ox, but couldn't pour water out of a bucket with the instructions printed on the bottom.

Steve

To think, I whined about having to make a wedge and cover for the screw box on my wife's 4 inch vice.

Good job on the restore and I'm sure it will give years of happy service.

Steve,

 

If you don't mind could you show the tool you used to hot punch the 1X1 stock after drilling?

Don't have a pic right now, but it is a 1/4" x 1" flat bottom slot punch, forged from 3/4" 5160 and normalized. It is ~5" long, I hold it in tongs , cooling it every 2-3 blows. Punch 1/2 way through, or so, flip the piece and punch the slug(s) through the hardie hole. I just did a little touch up filing inside the hole, and flattened out the swelling on the bottom of the piece.
 Does that help?

Steve

It helps a lot. I have not done any sort of heat treating or normalizing yet (with the exception of annealing some copper) but I am going to make a crude attempt at making my leg vise hardware from looking at yours. If it doesn't turn out well I can always try again. Right now it's just functionality for me, the pretty stuff will come later, I hope.

 

Right now it's just functionality for me, the pretty stuff will come later, I hope.

Always have high goals and shoot for them. Doing it good enough works, but you'll never be happy with it. It'll happen at some point 

Thanks Mark. Are you near Crystal Lake? I lived there till I was 13.

I sure am. I'm in Marengo 

 

Thanks Mark. Are you near Crystal Lake? I lived there till I was 13.

 

It was nice living on a lake growing up but I still have bad memories of cold, snow and ice and trying to deliver 40 copies of the Chicago Daily News in it.

There is an open forge here in Tucson tomorrow at Harold Hillborn's shop with a tool making demo by Joe Madrid who believe it or not is a distant cousin of mine that I met through AABA and an accomplished blacksmith. I am going to glean all I can about tool making and treating.